Growing up, I was never really what you would call a ‘sickly child.’ Now of course I’ve gotten sick several times on my path to adulthood, schools are too much of a germ cauldron for any child to emerge unscathed, but I was never in and out of the hospital, or looking like I spent days knocking on death’s door kind of child and for that fact I’m grateful.
The older I got, my ‘sick moments’ became more random and unpredictable. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase “This is very uncommon for someone as young as he is” from various doctors for various temporary conditions. Thankfully, nothing outside of two conditions ever seem to linger around for more than a few months, and compared to what I could’ve developed, I’d take these two things any day of the week.
I had a Black Friday post all lined up, just waiting to be written and posted up because you know, procrastination and whatnot… Anyway, I had just woken up from a nap before work and was only out of my bed for a few minutes when my stomach started hurting. Which brings me to condition one.
For those who know, and those who don’t, I suffer from IBS, which is short for irritable bowel syndrome. I won’t bore you with the exact (and not so exact) details since that’s what the Internet is for, but essentially my stomach can start hurting for hours on end for the smallest and usually insignificant reasons, which then leads to me ingesting all types of stomach settling products just to find some relief. There’s no “cure” but you can reduce the frequency of stomach episodes by making adjustments to your diet as well as certain lifestyle changes that vary depending on the person.
So I naturally thought I was having yet another episode of condition one. It wasn’t until the cold sweats, constant vomiting, and sharp pain in my side that I’d realized that condition 2 had returned. You see, I also suffer from kidney stones.
Whenever I tell that to someone, they always make that “Oooh” face and then ask me is it as painful as people say it is… I had a doctor tell me that it’s probably the closest a man will come to feeling childbirth pains. I tend to have a different description for it every time that I’m asked. It’s like if someone stabbed you in one side of your back and just kept on twisting. It’s like you took a ball made out broken glass and rubber bands and let it bounce around in your kidney for awhile. It hurts to sit, stand, lay down, and occasionally even just to breathe.
This is my 3rd one and ended up being my 4th trip to the Emergency Room for problems related to them. Got my first one in 2009, another one in 2010, and despite all my steps to prevent it, another one this past week. Spent five days popping pain killers and drinking absurd amounts of water, while including various home herbal remedies to ease my suffering, which left me ample time to reflect, since I couldn’t quite go to work in my condition.
Despite my health at the time, despite the fact that I’ll probably be dealing with both of these conditions for the rest of my natural life, I found myself feeling grateful. Which is really strange for me.
I had once been the king of pity parties. Slightest thing would go wrong and I would mentally throw myself into a “WHY ME??” of seemingly justified mild depression. I can’t say I was wrong to feel how I was feeling, but how ungrateful was my complaining in the grand scheme of things? I’m complaining because I have to suffer through this very painful and uncommon stone that will eventually pass out thru my fully functional and healthy kidneys? I’m whining because I have to use the bathroom more than your average person but still far less than someone who can’t always fully control their bowels? See what I mean?
I’m not saying that I can shrug off every unexpected obstacle and roadblock in my health, but it’s always been a roadblock, not a wall. Not something that I can’t get through with enough time and perseverance. To drive this thought home even more, on the same morning that I passed my stone, my temporary stone, I found out that one of my friends from college had lost her fight with sickle-cell anemia, something she’d been struggling with her entire life. One of the things that I admired most about her was her desire to do the most with her life despite her condition. I can’t speak for anyone else’s circumstances but my own, but for those who read this post, I hope you take this message to heart and look for the positives, no matter how few, of your circumstances.
R.I.P. Jasmine Bailey
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